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I admittedly haven't updated my cheats database since playing through ToI almost a year ago, but has anyone found character-change codes for battle yet? By that I mean changing what playable characters are usable in your party in battle, and entertaining the possibility of morphing a certain irritating protagonist into his more interesting previous incarnation.

I only ask because you technically control Asura in the game's first battle, so he should have some playable battle-data floating around somewhere in the game's code, right? That seems like it would be a much easier rom-hack to pull off than making a random boss playable.

Because no one has the answer ?
don't except everyone who reads it will give you what you want
By the way I don't know the answers too, but it's probably not that hard to do (never really tried things like that)

I just feel that if it's really that important for you, you would download the latest cheat database, check the GameID of your patched one to make sure, and then check the relevant section. If it weren't as important, then you would just wait for someone else to do it for you.

Well considering I played the game long after its initial release and even long after the translation patch had given the game a brief resurgence of popularity, it seems rather unlikely that in the eight months since that people would still be actively searching for new cheat codes for it. And I googled ahead of time, finding no cheats to that effect.

But, let it not be said I am impolite when asking others for help. I have run the most recent cheat database through an XML editor and found...nothing new or noteworthy.

Now, I don't know the first thing about hacking, other than perhaps a subpar understanding of how to use a hex editor. It does occur to me, however, that alot of these codes are grouped into categories like "Character Slot 1 HP, XP, TP, Equipment", etc. I wonder if somewhere next to Character Slot 1's HP address is another byte which, perhaps, controls who Character Slot 1 is, and perhaps modifying that byte would hold the key to making Asura playable.

well then you need to take a trip to kodewerx.net (if it still is up) and take a look at the how to make action replay code pages.
as what you are asking is a little more complicated and involves switching the character in slot 1 and comparing/finding the value(s) that changed. First will be the stats but what you are looking for is more specific. hopefully there is more than one character who goes in slot1. it will mean save states and comparing between those save states or playing until that character changes. also helpful is the change in slot2 and slots beyond.
now bear in mind that some games have the character available but no growth stats... as in they will never level up. taking the rom apart first will help you figure that out (if they do indeed have the ability to 'grow'). it will also help give you a general idea of where and what is getting loaded and if it would be easier to do a file dupe instead with another character and just replace that characters graphics (name and stats) with what you want.

so to be clear you are asking for a code and not a full blown character replace 'patch'?

A full-blown patch would be nice, obviously, but I think it would probably take a dedicated hacker to pull that off, not me. I just wanted to fool around with a code and see if it can even be done before planning a grand romhack.

Well the patch might be easier to do as the rom has been documented (in translation).
where as the code(s) are going to take some work going through values...
start by knocking out the stat codes and work back with a search for the name of the character itself. the name will show up in the script a lot but when you knock out all locations in the script then you should have the slot.

The other way is to check the slots themselves.
As I haven't played this game and this will help you, can you change the characters out of the other slots easily?
change character "A" form slot 2 to slot 3.
so do a basic diff search - comparing before and after and slowly go through the values that come up. this could be anywhere from 2 to 10000+ so it will be important to have the stat values eliminated first before you do the diff search (if you end up doing one). as knowing the 300+ codes(or values) that pop up that are not needed as they already are stat codes(values) that just changed from slot 1 to slot 2. so before you change it note the stats and the hex value for the characters being moved. when you do a diff search you can eliminate alot of the codes (or values as you know what they are as they are this or that characters stats in hex).
whats left is the slot stuff or random game changes.
so do another diff search with character "C" in slot 2 to slot 3. keeping in mind that you are keeping the old search results in memory so that you are eliminating certain useless other data. this will eliminate the stat values from before and highlight the slot themselves changes. rinse and repeat for the any other character and see if it just one spot that changes. then rig up a code that increases or decreases the value in that "area" to see what happens. or do a code for each value test. aa is x character ab is this character and so on (just an example its not really the value), for slot 2 then you do it again for slot 3 and slot 4 and note the value difference between clot 2,3,4 values and work back form the slot 2 value to find slot 1. (oh that sounds confusing but those who have made ar codes probably know what I am talking about)

I honestly believe though that you should ask one of the people who worked on the translation if they remember if that specific character was like the others - if that character had more details. if they don't then you are wasting your time doing a code search. as I explained this in an earlier post.
Unless having a (different) character from later in the game early is something you want....
hmmmm....

take ten minutes and look through the translated files. It really shouldn't take you that long to figure this out yourself. (without asking the people who did the translation).... if you should bother doing an ar code search...

then your only option would be to do a file dupe/edit. It really won't be that much work... unless the character you are replacing is in some form of movie in game...
Compared to other hacks it would be a relatively small hack. change any later refernce to previous characters name to new one and your good to go... after the graphic and other stuff.